Évin: who was he? The Trojan Horse

Comforting news about the health of the Italian wine trade. Nomisma research “Italian wine in the world. Trends, Positioning and Prospects” speaks of a healthy sector that registers a +68 percent performance in global exports from 2012 to 2022 and an increase from €4.7 to €7.8 MLD for the same period. The weight of wine in total agri-food exports is 13 percent and this is due to the contribution of all Italian regions demonstrating a vast and attractive diversity of proposals. The less reassuring data for the first quarter of 2023 are only of partial concern as they can be attributed to contingent factors on a global scale.

Instead, what is of greater concern is a close examination of the market trends, especially as it relates to the younger generation, particularly Z. Trends such as the search for organic or biodynamic wine, the great attention to the sustainability, or to details and consumption habits such as The increase in off-premise for white people, are phenomena that can be governed quite easily.

The critical points are others. Of these, two are highlighted by Federico Castellucci, Confagricoltura, and they are the demand for no or low alcohol (no-lo) wines and wines suitable for mixology. Another critical point relates, according to Lamberto Frescobaldi, to the process of mechanization and the chronic lack of labor combined with the general lack of political clout of the agricultural world.

However, the worst is elsewhere and, in my opinion, not enough work is being done to counteract it. The research mentions the increase in demand for no-alcohol wines, marvels at this phenomenon, discusses whether or not to call this product “wine,” but does not mention the very powerful non-alcohol lobbies that are trying to dig the grave of wine consumption under the guise of health. Indeed, what is behind Nutriscore-type labels or those recently introduced by Ireland for wine? Daniele Cernilli, in his article “The Trojan Horse” talks about conspiracy and attack on wine under the guise of health reasons: of course! Let’s call a spade a spade! That is: LOBBYING!

In the 1990s I had approached the world of Masters of Wine. The first question they asked me was, “Tell me about the lo i (law, ed.) Évin.” Évin: who was he? I knew Carnead much better, but I was not the only one. Of all the colleagues to whom I asked the same question, no one could give an answer. Well, the Évin Act of 1992 is the law in France that established a ban on advertising alcoholic products by any means, starting with wine. And soon after, again in France then later throughout Europe, he tried and is trying to cancel all funding for wine promotion and gave birth to blood alcohol limits, breathalyzers and their consequences.

So we habitual wine drinkers have found ourselves fearing hellish penalties just for having a glass of wine, while the consumption of hard liquor and various drugs continues to increase unabated in nightclubs around the world. I found that law objectionable and wanted to investigate to see who it benefited. Main promoters were the anti-alcohol associations of the day. I was able to find their financial statements then available in the clear on the net and discovered that one of the major funders was a very famous multinational non-alcoholic beverage company. Today the law is 30 years old, the anti-alcohol associations are in their third generation, with Addictions France leading the way, but budgets are no longer in the clear and there is general talk of subsidies amounting to €19,112,640 by 2023, of which about €3,300,000 is from private sources. Meanwhile, the fight against alcoholism is increasingly turning into an attack on wine, and the episode of the Irish measure seems to be just a showdown of the non-alcoholic troops waiting to broaden the experiment as widely as possible.

We mentioned lobbying. Even President Macron, in defending the alcohol industries by promising that loi Évin would not be amended to further restrict legal marketing actions in France, has taken a good charge of lobbying. (The Regulation of Alcohol Marketing in France: The Loi Evin at Thirty. Marine Friant-Perrot1 and Amandine Garde2 1: UNIVERSITY OF NANTES, FRANCE, 2: UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL, UNITED KINGDOM)

Lobbying, which originated in the United States, is defined as “the attempt by individuals or interest groups to influence government decisions.” After Washington, Brussels is the second lobbying capital as it is close to major European institutions. This activity was regulated by the European Council mel 2021 by making it compulsory for interest representatives to join a “Transparency Register,” making it subject to a code of conduct and an obligation for parliamentarians to publish meetings. Italy, on the other hand, has no legislation on lobbying, an activity that does not have a good reputation due to deviations in recent national history. Despite this, lobbying firms exist and there is a 2022 bill that tends to create lobbying regulation at the national level.

In conclusion: lobbying lives on and is carried out in a very invasive way by pharmaceutical companies, industrial giants in the chemical, agribusiness, beverage, and environmental collectives, and is managed on a global scale with huge investments. In the face of this phenomenon, the Italian wine world is completely absent, is sharply divided and distracted by internal competitions, and does not even remotely think about possible counteraction using the same means. (*)

TheNonalcoholic Empire is directing us toward dealcoholic wine, and here the final problem has arisen: to call it wine or not?

First of all, I want to mention that the demand for alcohol-free wine originated before the no-lo fad and was basically born for religious reasons. In 2015, I participated in Vinitaly Sol&Agrifood with a Tuscan oil company. We had a visiting Iranian client who, before taking his leave, asked my advice on where and what non-alcoholic wines he could sample at the fair. I was not surprised because I am used to English outlets, where this product is commonly available, on a par with white champagnes and blue champagnes, but I was taken aback by the fact that in Italy this product was almost unobtainable. Thinking of the Muslim market, a non-alcoholic wine production seems anything but a peregrine idea. Now the religious aspect is joined by fashion.

Nomisma’s research concludes that the market increasingly favors organic and (especially) sustainable products, with great attention from the younger generation to the low alcohol content, ease of drinking and mixability. Castellucci states, “there is a need to indulge in dealcoholic wine production, as was the case with non-alcoholic beer“. Also aggravating the picture is Britain, where the Sunak government has passed excise tax reform that heavily penalizes still wine, although it saves bubbles.

The nonalcoholic lobby seems to be gaining ground quickly. What should our producers do then?

Those who make high-end or collectible wine do not take great risks; they cater to a small, educated, evolved, passionate audience or to the newly rich with very high spending power, a category that seems to be increasing all the time. Those who make territorial wine must rely on a high cultural background of the consumer, which will certainly lead them to discard industrial products. We are in the small- and medium-sized producer sector here, and the use of collaboration and associationism will be crucial.

For the rest: we enter the universe of industrial wine where we talk about significant quantities and only apparent quality. The nonalcoholic giants are very well equipped in this field. But the objection that wine producers do not have equal capacity does not entirely convince me. I know many bulk dealers, many also not colossal in size, who have several hundred thousand euro tangential filters, so converting to a dealcolation line should not be an insurmountable problem. Reverse osmosis or “perextraction,” with climate change taking place, are much more familiar processes than we think. There are machine models that can allow a choice of 10,20,50, 100 and 200 liters/hour of extracted alcohol. Perhaps the problem is more about marketing, an area in which our producers are not exactly at the pinnacle of excellence. But it can be done.

Hence the Hamletic doubt arises: should we continue to talk about “WINE” or “NOT WINE”?

According to the law, wine is defined as “the product obtained exclusively from the alcoholic fermentation, in whole or in part, of fresh grapes, whether or not crushed, or of grape must with an alcohol content of not less than three-fifths of the total alcohol content.” An attempt to decrease alcohol content was made by the European Union in 2021, and there was even an attempt to introduce the possibility of adding water to wine. The measure that would allow products with an alcohol content of less than 8 or 9 degrees to be called wine has yet to be ratified by the various governments, and this is where lobbying will come into play with the new CAP reform. And in any case, it does not disregard the requirement to start from the UVA raw material.

There are those who believe that keeping the word wine even at zero alcohol would favor the beverage lobby, because of the already proven structure by the soft and carbonated beverage industry and the related marketing practices adopted. In my opinion the thing is not so obvious. Abolishing the word wine would disincentivize all wine producers to remain present in this sector, which instead seems to have great prospects for development, including economic development. Recovering the entire Islamic market and also the market of professional teetotalers would mean activating a business turnover with many zeros. Abolishing the word wine, on the other hand, would mean making the business unattractive to anyone, neither the alcohol lobby nor the non-alcohol lobby.

Keeping the word wine, linked to the fact that the product is nonetheless derived from the fermentation of grapes, forces the producer, whether alcoholic or nonalcoholic, to start from this base material. The beverage industry would be forced to plant vineyards (an unlikely scenario) or source from bulk producers helping to forcefully revive non-bottled wine production and decrease surpluses. This year France had to invest 57 million euros in uprooting 9,500 hectares of vineyards in Bordeaux. Similar incidents have occurred in Australia. What if that money had been used to produce dealcoholic wine destined for the 17 Muslim countries (from Saudi Arabia to the Emirates, parts of India, Indonesia, and so on) where there is a ban on alcoholic beverages?

(*) In this regard, one could also cite the case of grains, from genetically modified corn and grains, corn made sterile in order to sell the seed annually, gamma irradiated grains, the presence of glyphosate in grains imported from Canada. Who is it that convinces the journalist on duty Alessandro Trocino to say elegantly, “then free of guilt cry: c’hai rotto il cazzo voi e i grani antichi” (so in the article).? Or writer Luigi Cattivelli in “Our Bread. Ancient grains, flours and other lies” to argue, “Is it in fact shown that the association between modern wheat, mutagenesis and radiation, used to induce mutations, is something that is only mentioned in sites that are not really ‘scientific’?” So unscientific that in fifteen minutes of searching I downloaded 18 university research papers such as, “Gamma radiosensitivity study on wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum)” De Gruyter Open Agriculture 2020.

A very disturbing case of denialism that speaks volumes about the active influence of the target lobbies. Any reference to Monsanto is by no means coincidental.